The life of learning
My tutor… according to the practice of all tutors at that moment, gave himself no concern about his pupils. I never saw him but during a fortnight, when I took into my head to be taught trigonometry,” wrote James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury, in 1800, recalling his time at Oxford University in the 1760s. His fellow graduate Vicesimus Knox had been equally disparaging of the place in 1782: “the greatest dunce” graduates with “as much ease and credit as the finest genius”, he remarked scornfully. After 600 years training the nation’s clergy and diplomats, both Oxford and its rival Cambridge were struggling to make the grade: “must try harder” was the verdict of critics during the late Georgian era.
University was certainly an undemanding experience. Lectures were scarce and supervision casual, leaving undergraduates to do as much or as little studying as they pleased. Since failure in the exams
